Prosecutors to seek death for Stayner / Motel handyman pleads not guilty in Yosemite slayings

2001-07-16 04:00:00 PDT Mariposa -- A motel handyman who reportedly confessed to killing three female tourists near Yosemite National Park pleaded not guilty in the slayings as prosecutors announced today they would seek the death penalty.

Their bodies were found a month after they disappeared Feb. 15, 1999, from a lodge near the park where Stayner worked as a maintenance worker.

The case drew national attention in several respects, with the seemingly incongruity of three tourists vanishing without a trace in one of the country's most scenic and popular attractions.

Then came the arrest of Stayner, the tanned, clean-cut older brother of Steven Stayner, who was abducted from a Merced street in December 1972 and sexually abused by his kidnapper for more than seven years before escaping. It became one of California's most high-profile abduction cases. Steven Stayner died in a 1989 motorcycle crash.

Cary Stayner's arrest also came after the FBI initially focused its investigation on a motley crew of drug users. It was later revealed that Stayner had been interviewed and discounted earlier in the probe, a gaffe that led to the reassignment of the FBI's top official in Sacramento.

In court today, a trial date was set for Feb. 25, 2002, on three murder counts and special circumstances, including burglary, robbery, sexual assault, oral copulation and kidnapping.

Stayner, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit, said, "Not guilty," in a quiet voice when asked to enter a plea before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Thomas Hastings.

During the arraignment, prosecutor George Williamson announced that he would seek the death penalty in the slayings. But defense attorney Marcia Morrissey has indicated that the evidence did not make it a capital case.

Francis Carrington noted that the death penalty is carried out with painkillers and chemicals that relax muscles, but that Stayner's alleged sexual torture of the victims provided no such help.

"I would just hope and pray that our children would have gone so easily -- that he could have shown such compassion himself," Francis Carrington, 68, said. "We only hope that justice is swift, and we know it isn't."

Carole Carrington, 66, said, "I'm glad that they decided to go for the death penalty. I think we need to send a message to other people who might do a copycat crime."

Mariposa County District Attorney Christine Johnson and her team of prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty last week but announced it only today in court.

Morrissey could ask that the trial be moved outside Mariposa County to assure that pretrial publicity does not affect her client's right to a fair trial. She has also said her client's alleged confession was not admissible in court.

Stayner's arraignment today came a month after Hastings ruled that there was enough evidence for him to be put on trial, following a three-day preliminary hearing in which Stayner's taped confession to the killings was played in court.

On the tapes, Stayner recounted how he plotted rape and murder for a year and considered two other groups of women before he spontaneously decided to kill the Yosemite tourists at the Cedar Lodge.

Stayner, a handyman at the motel with no previous criminal history, said he zeroed in on Carole Sund and her two teenage charges after spying them through their window at the lodge. As the two hours of tape played at a hearing last month, Stayner wept and blocked his ears to keep out the sound.

At one point Pelosso's father, Jose, leaped angrily to his feet and screamed "son of a bitch" at the accused killer.